Monsters

Monsters

1988
Monsters
Monsters

Monsters

7.3 | TV-14 | en | Drama

Monsters is a syndicated horror anthology series which originally ran from 1988 to 1991 and reran on the Sci-Fi Channel during the 1990s. As of 2011, Monsters airs on NBC Universal's horror/suspense-themed cable channel Chiller in sporadic weekday marathons. In a similar vein to Tales from the Darkside, Monsters shared the same producer, and in some ways succeeded the show. It differed in some respects nonetheless. While Tales sometimes dabbled in stories of science fiction and fantasy, this series was more strictly horror. As the name implies, each episode of Monsters featured a different monster which the story concerned, from the animatronic puppet of a fictional children's television program to mutated, weapon-wielding lab rats. Similar to Tales, however, the stories in Monsters were rarely very straightforward action plots and often contained some ironic twist in which a character's conceit or greed would do him in, often with gruesome results. Adding to this was a sense of comedy often lost on horror productions which might in some instances lighten the audience's mood but in many cases added to the overall eeriness of the production.

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Seasons & Episodes

3
2
1
EP24  The Moving Finger
Apr. 26,1991
The Moving Finger

A man battles a large finger that that rises out of drain of his sink.

EP23  The Maker
Apr. 18,1991
The Maker

A bum encounters a man with the power to create anything he desires.

EP22  Hostile Takeover
Feb. 24,1991
Hostile Takeover

A cut-throat CEO is making good business with the help of voodoo, but doesn't find out until it's too late that it comes with a very high price.

EP21  Talk Nice to Me
Feb. 17,1991
Talk Nice to Me

A columnist and lady's man is harassed by a woman via the phone, but he can't figure out who she is, how she seems to know what's going on in his apartment all the time, or how she manages to get into his place without him seeing her.

EP20  Werewolf of Hollywood
Feb. 10,1991
Werewolf of Hollywood

A screenwriter it tasked to pen a horror film with the unique premise of a werewolf in the position of an executive. But things starting getting a bit bloody when it seems that it hits a nerve with someone in the studio.

EP19  A Face for Radio
Feb. 03,1991
A Face for Radio

A smart-mouth host of a late-night radio show is beguiled by a female guest who claims she was abducted by aliens and that they gave her a creature to help rid the planet of evil.

EP18  Desirable Alien
Jan. 27,1991
Desirable Alien

A caseworker for the United States Immigration Service wants to unlock the mystery of her subject's alluring power.

EP17  Leavings
Jan. 21,1991
Leavings

Two police officers are disturbed by recent sightings of people who are missing body parts and others who appear to have been almost put together from other parts. However, the oddest thing is the blasé reaction of their supervisor upon hearing their stories.

EP16  The Waiting Room
Jan. 13,1991
The Waiting Room

A father brings his son and his new wife to a hotel where he and his wife once stayed. It seems that there is a specific reason for this, one that has to do with a promise he broke to a woman he encountered in a room that exists only in the dark.

EP15  The Space Eaters
Jan. 06,1991
The Space Eaters

Two men encounter a victim who claims his brain was eaten. After confirming the story, they attempt to fight off the alien invader responsible.

EP14  Household Gods
Dec. 30,1990
Household Gods

When a recent mother tries to go back to work while maintaining some housework, she finds things going awry. To her disbelief she finds out that her lifestyle is defying the domestic gods.

EP13  Malcolm
Dec. 23,1990
Malcolm

A husband rediscovers a part of himself that he thought he lost long ago when he gave up his music career for his wife.

EP12  A New Woman
Dec. 16,1990
A New Woman

As a rich, elderly man lays dying, his cold-hearted mistress threatens what maybe his last morale act on earth. For her soulless intents, the man's mysterious doctor promises her a haunting that very well may change her outlook.

EP11  Sin-Sop
Dec. 09,1990
Sin-Sop

A sort of faith healer has set up a kind of distillery for paying customers. What was once the most sinful man is now a living conduit to drain people of their sins.

EP10  The Waiting Game
Dec. 09,1990
The Waiting Game

After a nuclear blowout, only two factions remain. Humans inside of a small locked shelter, and nuclear holocaust vampires. With the two sides only separated by a small digital code on the outside of the shelter.

EP9  The Young and the Headless
Nov. 25,1990
The Young and the Headless

The marriage of a couple of doctors become problematic when the woman's presumed-to-be-dead husband returns and she finds herself still allured to the hunk despite her better judgement. After finding success with animating a headless parrot, the two decide to use the numbskull of a third wheel to take their work to another level.

EP8  A Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites
Nov. 18,1990
A Shave and a Haircut, Two Bites

Two teenagers think the barber shop across the street may be a secret meeting place for town vampires.

EP7  Small Blessings
Nov. 11,1990
Small Blessings

A young family tries to cope with having a meat hungry deformed baby.

EP6  The Hole
Nov. 04,1990
The Hole

A group of men find their way into a bunker during the Vietnam War, only to find that this hole hides a secret buried in its walls.

EP5  Outpost
Oct. 28,1990
Outpost

A planetary station commander discovers the identity of a monster that operates a mining project on a hostile planet.

EP4  Cellmates
Oct. 21,1990
Cellmates

A young man expecting to be freed from prison by his rich father discoveres he's been placed in the wrong cell.

EP3  Bug House
Oct. 14,1990
Bug House

A man awakes to find himself in a home where the lady of the house has a non-chalant attitude towards the bugs in her home.

EP2  Murray's Monster
Oct. 07,1990
Murray's Monster

A psychiatrist with his own stress from his wife finds a solution when he discovers a sheepish patient has manifested his repressed anger in the form of a giant ape-like monster.

EP1  Stressed Environment
Sep. 30,1990
Stressed Environment

Mutant rats threaten pesticide wielding scientists in a laboratory.

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7.3 | TV-14 | en | Drama , Mystery , Sci-Fi | More Info
Released: 1988-10-22 | Released Producted By: Tribune Entertainment , Country: United States of America Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:
Synopsis

Monsters is a syndicated horror anthology series which originally ran from 1988 to 1991 and reran on the Sci-Fi Channel during the 1990s. As of 2011, Monsters airs on NBC Universal's horror/suspense-themed cable channel Chiller in sporadic weekday marathons. In a similar vein to Tales from the Darkside, Monsters shared the same producer, and in some ways succeeded the show. It differed in some respects nonetheless. While Tales sometimes dabbled in stories of science fiction and fantasy, this series was more strictly horror. As the name implies, each episode of Monsters featured a different monster which the story concerned, from the animatronic puppet of a fictional children's television program to mutated, weapon-wielding lab rats. Similar to Tales, however, the stories in Monsters were rarely very straightforward action plots and often contained some ironic twist in which a character's conceit or greed would do him in, often with gruesome results. Adding to this was a sense of comedy often lost on horror productions which might in some instances lighten the audience's mood but in many cases added to the overall eeriness of the production.

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Cast

Director

Karen Grossman

Producted By

Tribune Entertainment ,

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Reviews

Foreverisacastironmess I enjoyed this series when it was shown on the UK Horror Channel several years ago. I found it to be a significant improvement over Tales From the Darkside but still weak compared to Tales From the Crypt, which is and will ever be the king of horror anthology TV shows. It had better production values and was a more fun and satisfying show to watch than Darkside, I liked the angle of the stories all involving a monster is some kind. And they came up with some pretty wild ideas. The alien in "Glim Glim" looks ridiculous, but the story was still kind of touching I thought, and I liked the episode that's reminiscent of "They Live" that's from the kid's point of view who can see that his stepdad is a hideous reptilian when he wears some special glasses. Some episodes were very sloppy and didn't quite work, but it was never the endurance test that watching the many bad episodes of Darkside were. The episodes that were the standout ones to me were the one with the young and beautiful Ashley Lawrence in the dark scary house with her friends because it felt like a lost mini 80s classic movie, the one with a guy in a Mexico jail and there's a cursed water statue, and the best one, for me, was "The Hole" that had soldiers in a death pit running through dusty underground haunted tunnels, falling victim to the skeletal dead that are exploding from the walls everywhere to prey on them and drag them down into the dirt, very claustrophobic and actually scary, and the zombies looked seriously fantastic. Monsters is a very worthwhile horror show to watch and it's one that definitely deserves a DVD release alongside the likes of Crypt and Friday the 13th the Series, but it really does appear that this show got the raw end of the stick as far as a release goes, and that's a bit of a damn shame, it's not perfect but it is a show that's well worth seeing. I liked this show a lot, it was fun and it had so many different monsters in! Thank you and goodnight fright fans, keep Monsters alive!!
Aaron1375 This was a pretty good show along the same lines as "Tales from the Darkside", in fact I tend to mix up episodes from both thinking episodes came from the other one. The shows here were more monster focused though, granted the same could almost be said about tales as well, but I remember episodes of it having nothing to really do with some sort of fiend or ghoulie. I seem to remember that this one had a cool show about a spider web that was really quite good I also remember one about a wasp woman, but that one might have been "Tales from the Crypt". I also remember a really good one about a guy getting stranded at an old farmhouse and having to spend the evening with what appeared to be a very lovely lady. All in all monsters was a rather good horror show in a time when there were quite a few good horror shows on television during a time when where were a whole heck of a lot more independent stations that would air them. This one had its moments, just not quite as good as say Tales was.
eyespy3001 I used to love this show, even at the age of 8. I remember staying up late to catch it, I think on Saturday nights. I'll never forget the opening: a bird's eye view of a seemingly normal town, which continues down through the neighborhood, eventually ending up inside one of the homes in which all the family members are gathering around to watch some TV, then the camera reveals that they're all monsters. I believe the father was, like, a cyclops and he was eating something like little critters out of a popcorn bowl. The theme music used to bug me out.The one stand out episode that I still remember was the one where the guy had a bed that he would feed his dates to. At the end, one of his dates feeds him to her refrigerator. I may be wrong about he details on that one, but I'm pretty sure that's how insane it was.This show, in the end, was a campier Twilight Zone, but it definitely pulled it off. I'd probably still dig this if it were shown today.
kwaidan_1964 I must first begin by expressing the fact that Monsters was a well done show and out did its' predecessor, Tales From the Darkside. Don't get me wrong. Tales had a great staff, a lot of world renowned writers, and a brilliant cast. But It stayed within the realms of family viewing. It was a show that even the most uptight and strict parents could let their kids watch. It was very tame. I believe policies and guidelines for TV shows may have been a factor, which is why we can really only compare Monsters to shows like Tales from the Crypt. Even though, Tales From the Crypt bares all, in terms of gore and murder and you won't find half naked women on the VHS tapes of Monsters. They are a better match because they delve deeper into horror, while being able to make you laugh and expect the unexpected. Monsters had great effects, a great score, and you can't deny the talent that went into that show. I think that we should admire the creators of Monsters, because if it wasn't for shows like that one, there would have probably not been a place on television for great shows like, Tales from the Crypt.